Pokemon: Redux
by Model314
Summary: An incident changes Ash forever, questioning what he thought he knew and what he thought were the right choices. At the same time an old enemy has returned, stronger than before. Dealing with them as well as new enemies and shocking new allies will be hard enough without a feeling Ash can't seem to get rid off. AU fic that will include AAML
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, credit for that goes to Satoshi Tajiri and the Pokemon Company.**

 **Please support the official release.**

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The smoke in the arena began to clear as the 2 competitors on either side tried to see the aftermath of the two attacks meeting in the middle of the arena, the Audience trying to do the same as well as the commentators watching and the Nurse Joy on standby.

It was so quiet that the only sounds heard was the trainers breathes due to the mics they wore.

The smoke near the outer field faded and the audience could see the trainers, the challenger was a young girl who seemed to be in her early 20s, she was pretty averaged sized but appeared taller due to her boots, she wore blue jeans with an old shirt that had the Indigo League logo on it, she had long hot pink coloured hair that was tied back into a ponytail and she also had 2 black arm sleeves on.

She was currently searching through the smoke for anything that could determine her partners' condition, after some of the smoke cleared she could just make out her Pokémon.

"Trex!" she cried in concern as she could see her Tyranitar was exhausted.

After more of the smoke cleared thanks to a sudden wind change a Gengar could be seen, it was clearly unable to battle any more.

The referee made the call, holding up a red flag and speaking "Gengar is unable to battle! The winner of this round goes to Lisa!"

A large section of the crowd cheered loudly at that, the commentator being almost drowned out over the loudspeakers

"What a fantastic match! For a while it looked like Tyranitar was done for but came back with a super effective Dark Pulse!"

"well done old friend, return" the man on the other side of the field said, he was tall and athletic with dark hair and wore black jeans and singlet, he held the ball to his mouth "that was a good battle" and he proceeded to put the ball onto his belt.

Drake looked up at Lisa with a smile. "It seems I underestimated your Pokémon and for that I apologise, that Tyranitar is truly well trained" he turned serious "but this battle isn't over yet!" he pulled off the poke ball on his necklace and threw it into the air, a flash of light coming out to reveal a Dragonite.

Lisa was shocked "WAIT! You had a poke ball as a necklace?!"

"Yep, see Dragonite here is my best friend, I like to keep him close" Drake simply said with his eyes shut.

Lisa was suddenly intimidated, she knew this was coming but it had been so long since someone had beaten Drakes dragonite, in fact it had been almost 6 years since the last trainer that pulled off that feat.

"I'm glad we got to this point, Lisa you are truly a great trainer to get to this point but I'm afraid this is as far as you are going to get" Drake said to her with a smirk, unknown to Lisa he was trying to get her back in the match and he knew his plan had worked when Lisa suddenly shouted her command.

"Alright Trex use Dragon Tail!"

Drake quickly responded "Dragonite dodge and use ice beam!"

Trex moved slower due to exhaustion and had to get into closer range while Dragonite just fired the Ice Beam attack, Trex tried to dodge but was too slow, managing to dodge the worst of it but still stumbled forward, a trail of ice from the dodge making jumping back no longer an option Trex was now stuck at close range, but yet Lisa realised she could turn it around

"Alright Trex one more Dragon Tail!"

"Dragonite get away" but it was too close to dodge and took the attack, howling in pain, Drake concerned with his friend's wellbeing.

Before Drake could actually give an order Dragonite fired a Dragon Rage attack hitting Trex head on and finishing what Gengar started.

"Tyranitar is no longer able to battle! The winner of this round is Drake!"

"I'm so proud of you Trex, you did a great job" Lisa proudly said to her Pokémon as she returned it "you just rest up okay?"

"And it looks like it's the final round ladies and gentlemen with both sides having only 1 Pokémon each! Will Dragonite be able to withstand what Lisa throws or will we have a new contender for the Championship after 4 years?" the crowd became excited at the announcers words.

"Okay, this is it, I'm counting on you!" Lisa grabbed a poke ball that seemed to have a small sticker on it into the air, a beam of light forming a Houndoom.

Drake looked at the fire type.

"Well Lisa, it looks like this is it, although Dragonite is injured I wouldn't count it out just yet"

Lisa grinned "we'll see about that"

The Referee stood up "This is the final round, Dragonite vs Houndoom, with one Pokémon left per side, Trainers ready?" both trainers nodded "Go!"

"Houndy use Fire Blast!" A powerful fire blast began to form

"Quick counter with Hyper Beam!" Drake ordered, both attacks met in the middle of the arena, the explosion causing smoke and the wind to completely cover Dragonite as Lisa realised the true purpose of that hyper beam

'it wasn't meant the counter, Drake must have known the wind was on his side, I can't attack if I can't see and by the time the smoke clears Dragonite will be ready' Lisa thought to herself

"Alright let's not waste time! Houndy use Nasty Plot"

Houndooms eyes turned purple for a brief moment and it began to grin like its trainer.

"Alright Dragonite hit it with another hyper beam!"

"AGAIN?!" Lisa was shocked but suddenly remembered the ice trail "Houndy run towards Dragonite!"

Houndy obeyed, trusting its trainer and thinking it knew what the plan was.

Dragonite fired the Hyper Beam but before it could hit Lisa shouted "NOW!" Houndy suddenly lunged onto the ice path with headed straight towards where Dragonite was now visible, the resulting blast from the hyper beam giving Houndoom a boost in speed

"Houndy jump at Dragonite and hit it with Thunder Fang!" Houndoom quickly got its back legs and used them to quickly lunge at the immobilized dragon type, biting its arm with sparks coming from its mouth.

"DRAGONITE!" drake yelled with concern as Houndoom let go and jumped away.

'this is it, that dragonite looks like it's about to fall, better hold off and see what happens' Lisa thought, knowing it was no time to get excited as Dragonite was a pretty strong Pokémon.

Dragonite had fallen to all fours and was trying to get back up much to everyone's shock, including Drake.

Dragonite roared and suddenly collapsed, Drake running over to his Pokémon to check on him.

"Dragonite is no longer able to battle, the winner of this round being Houndoom which means the victory goes to Lisa of Trovita Island" the referee declared.

"And it looks like we have a new contender for the Orange League championship title! What a match ladies and gentlemen! It was a close one but in the end Lisa managed to pull off a rare feat not seen in nearly 7 years!" The commentary was again barely heard over the sounds of the Lisa supporters.

Back on the field Drake had returned his Dragonite back to its poke ball "well done old friend, well done" he handed his poke balls to the waiting Nurse Joy and began walking over at Lisa, who was currently on the ground being licked by a completely different acting Houndoom, who got off Lisa allowing her to stand up and face Drake who was now standing right in front of her.

"Lisa, it's clear that you care for your team and they feel the same way about you" he put out his hand to shake, Lisa smiled and returned the favour

"It really was a great match" Drake continued "you should be proud of both yourself and your Pokémon"

Lisa bowed her head "thank you" but was suddenly shocked when Drake threw her arm into the air, driving the crowd back into a frenzy at the show of sportsmanship between the trainers.

Lisa noticed that a camera crew was making their way towards them and started feeling nervous until Drake suddenly spoke up to them. "I'm sorry but this will have to wait as I need to debrief the contender" and without warning Drake took Lisa off the stadium floor and away from the press.

"Thanks… I'm not a fan of media" Lisa simply said.

"That's okay" Drake replied "besides I didn't actually lie, we need to speak about the Championship match anyway"

They arrived at the large room with a desk in the middle that was cluttered with letters and a few boxes.

Drake looked at the desk and sighed "you know I sometimes miss the days when the Orange League was more of an independent thing, the era of the orange crew" He sat down and pointed to a bean bag chair, Lisa sitting down and her Houndoom jumping onto her lap, she gave drake a look of apology but he simply shrugged "he as long as he don't burn anything it's cool"

"Yeah I remember hearing about the Orange Crew becoming an official league run by the same people who run the Indigo League right?" Lisa asked "but that's all I know, like I said I don't really pay much attention to media"

"well basically the Orange Crew used to be less like the mainland gym leaders and more like fun challenges, but when the Pokémon League decided to make it more like the other leagues it became a region with 6 gyms, luckily 2 gym leaders from Kanto decided to set up shop, I mean a 4 gym league?" Drake shook his head "anyway to good thing is after a trial and error the leaders here got to do challenges too and even got to make the rules harder as long as they were still fair, pretty much went back to the old format this season, many trainers got put off by that and left, but others relished the challenges"

"Damn right, the harder the better" Lisa grinned

"Yeah, speaking of challenges I nearly forgot why I brought you in here" drake said embarrassingly

"Yeah what happens now?"

"well pretty much since you're the contender we need to set up the championship match on a date that works for both of you sometime within the next few months, once we got a date you'll get a months' notice to train and get ready for it"

Lisa nodded "cool, I guess I gotta figure out a strategy"

"Yep, the guys tough" drake looked at the time "oh crap, I'm gonna have to cut this short, I need to make that call before the guys asleep"

Lisa checked her watch "wow, it's THAT late? Anyways" she stood up and shaked Drakes hand "thank you for the match"

"It was my pleasure, I look forward to the match coming up, if the guy kept training it's gonna be one to remember" Drake grinned.

Lisa waved as she left the room with her Houndoom following.

Drake turned to his desk and began to search the database on his PC to get the Champions contact details.

"Hmm it is pretty late, I guess it can wait 'til the morning" Drake said as he shut his PC down and began to leave his office...

The next morning a phone began to make noise inside a tent on the mountains somewhere north of Pewter City in the Kanto Region, a figure stirred and began to try and find the Xtransceiver that was causing him to awaken from a dream he was enjoying, his arm finally finding it's target, he grabbed it and pulled his long hair off his face to see who it was, the contact name being an important one so he answered immediately

"Hello?"

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 **Well here it is readers, the new and I hope improved version, many may wonder why I took the original down in the first place, the reason is simple, you see I wasn't happy with the flow and felt it wasn't what it could be, at the time I was also going through some personal issues that made me rethink a few things, this story being one of them, however I believe I have got my flow back so this story will continue, however updates may be slower because I really want to get it right, you MAY have the opinion that this chapter wasn't very well written well that's cos I'm lacking an editor and am trying to find one.**

 **Now I'm going to warn you: even though there will be AAML (I'm a pokeshipper) this story will have some dark moments as well as moments that some of you may not like but this is my story, so while I do hope it's liked I accept that not everyone will.**

 **To make it fun though I'm going to include some trivia about this story in the notes.**

 **Here is the first one: Lisa was originally going to be Mahri aka the younger sister of Rudy of Trovita Island but I decided to use an original character to save Mahri for a future chapter.**

 **Now that you've read this I have a few recommendations I'd like to do:**

 **Firstly**

 **The Road You Choose series by Skylight Sparkle, these stories are so well written and are awesome as, in fact these stories have helped inspire me again so a public thank you to you SS if you read this (hope you do)**

 **AAML: Diamond and Pearl version by EchidnaPower, another fantastic story and the way the writer alternates the stories to fit new characters feels so natural.**

 **Ashes of the Past by Saphroneth, this one is full of awesome moments (one word: Squirtle) and has an excellent story**

 **There are many more to recommend but I'm gonna save em for the next chapter.**

 **Anyways that's it from me, hope you liked the story and please leave a review, I will answer all reviews in each chapters notes.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	2. The Road to Viridian City

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon (if I did Misty would never have left and her and Ash would be together) all credit for that goes to Satoshi Tajiri and the pokemon company.**

 **This is merely a fan fiction.**

 **Please support the official release…**

 **Hey guys…. I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack, sorry for the delay and I shall let you get straight to it so here we go with Chapter 1: the road to Viridian City**

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It had been several hours since Ash got the call from Drake, of the Orange League, telling him about a new challenger. Drake could easily tell Ash was half asleep at the time, so he'd send all the details to his Ash's home in Kanto so that Ash would have all the information needed when he arrived home. Ash tied his hair into a ponytail, climbed out of his sleeping bag and went outside. The melting snow and the sounds of flying type Pokémon overhead indicated a sure sign that winter was nearly over. Ash yawned and checked the time, with a sigh he went back into the tent to pack everything up. Ash took apart the tent and put it in its bag, slinging it over his shoulder and he dragged his other bag to the bus stop. Ash hummed to himself as he checked the timetable and saw the bus to Pewter City was due soon. Ash had originally planned on making the journey like he used to but since he was on his own this time, he didn't feel like going it alone and he was impatient to get home.

As he waited for the bus, Ash reflected on the events of the past 2 years. After arriving home from the Kalos Region, Ash decided he wanted to take a break from travelling and to everyone's shock, he decided to study. Much to Ash's dismay, the only school that still had places available, didn't allow Pokémon on campus except for during holidays and special tournaments. Ash was so disappointed to learn that he was going to have to leave his beloved Pokémon behind, even with the encouragement from his Pokémon, Ash wasn't going to go and leave them. Pikachu soon fixed that with a friendly thunder shock to get him on the move. Ash's first few weeks at school were sad ones. He missed his friends and although he could always call them, seeing them on a screen was just not the same as in person. Especially in the last year, he had to study extra hard he just didn't have any time spare, he even missed out on some vacations. But finally that was all over, Ash had graduated and while he wasn't the smartest, he was happy with all the hard work he had put into his studies.

Finally a large bus pulled up with "Pewter City via route 3" on it. Ash put his luggage in the compartment and got on, using his Pokedex as a method of payment, thanks to all the money he had saved up.

While the bus ride was relaxing, the weather seemed to be clearing up, Ash was almost tempted to get off at Route 3 and travel the rest of the way on foot. "Nah, I wanna be home as soon as I can" Ash thought to himself as the bus departed Route 3. The journey only took an hour on the bus and Ash was the last person to get off the bus and collect his bags when it arrived at Pewter City, thankful that he decided on the bus rather than going on foot

The weather, now warm with a slightly cool breeze coming in from the east, was perfect for the trip ahead. Ash headed off to the Pewter City Gym, not only for a quick break, but also to see if Brock was free to hang out. Ash didn't expect to be home that evening and it had been awhile since he last saw his friend.

After finding no one at the gym, it was only a short walk to the Harrison's house. The house could easily be recognised a mile away by Flint's rock collection. Ash wasn't aware until Forrest told him but those were the boulders Flint used to make the Boulder Badges. With nobody home at the house, Ash went over to the Pokémon Center to rest up before heading off again. Waving goodbye and thanks to the Nurse Joy, Ash set off in the direction of Viridian City. As Ash reached the Pewter City limits, he looked back over his shoulder once more and started off along route 2.

After about ten or so minutes Ash got to the entrance Viridian Forest, but Ash wasn't planning to go through the forest, especially without any Pokémon for protection, so Ash walked along the outskirts of the forest until he came to a clearing in the east of route 2 that had a cave that was home to wild Diglett.  
Ash headed south along this path and walked past a house that was under construction, apparently a Ranger was going to live there to keep an eye on the forest, finally getting to a small ledge that returned him to the southern part of route 2 and the Northern entrance to Viridian City…..

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 **Authors Notes: first of all thanks for reading, I know it was only a short chapter but hey its something, feel free to leave a review etc (i do not respond to trolls though)**

 **sorry again for the delay, sadly some people make it a game to try and discourage me from writing and sadly it looked like it worked for a little bit but you know what? its MY story, even if its bad i still want to get it out there, plus like i said in the intro the story REALLY picks up once Ash gets to the Orange Islands.**

 **A big thank you to Mumma_Whovian for proof reading and editing this.**

 **Review responses:**

 **Roger: that's a bit harsh i'd say (and rude to the people who haven't been able to see that yet) considering that this story is only in it's early stages and that last chapter didn't actually have a proof reader. I assure you future chapters will be better.**

 **fromface: thanks. yes it is actually although some things have changed.. you'll see.**

 **Guest: working on it. working on it.**

 **Now for some fun trivia:**

 **Yes the chapter is in reference to the song, i had it stuck in my head the whole time i wrote this.**

 **I originally had Ash be with Pikachu and be at Pokemon Tech but i decided on a different school as PT would be popular.**

 **the school he went to was basically a cram high school and since i was asked Ash was best at History and some sports while his worse subjects were Math and Geography (although he got better at Geography)**

 **Oh and yep, that shortcut was the one normally where Cut is needed but i took a small liberty with it.**

 **That's all for now.. I am hoping to have at least 5 more chapters up by this coming Saturday as i want to get to the main story as soon as possible...**

 **Once again thanks for reading.**


	3. A Pallet for Arrivals

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon. Pokemon is the property of Satoshi Tajiri and the pokemon company**

 **this is a work of fan fiction, please support the official release**

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'Viridian sure has changed a lot these last few months' Ash thought to himself as he wandered the city.  
He was looking for a place to grab a bite to eat and maybe even find out about his challenger.  
He finally found the place he was looking for and had a quick lunch to refresh himself as well as call home to let his mother know he'd be there by the evening.  
There was no answer so Ash left her a message and unfortunately with only a name, he couldn't find out anything about the challenger.

Ash gathered his stuff and began to walk to Route 1.  
He was only half an hour away from home now, Ash followed a dirt road that went through the middle of Route 1, stopping suddenly when he noticed a familiar area. As he stood and faced the river, a smile escaped his face.  
Ash would never really admit it but this area was important to him and he had a certain attachment to this part of Route 1.  
Ash would often go there to think about things as well as visit an old friend of his.  
Sadly, Pidgeot wasn't there today.

Continuing on the path Ash came to the last hill that overlooked Pallet Town and the view was amazing.  
From this point you could see the whole town including Professor Oak's Laboratory, a few new buildings and far off in the distance Ash could see the area that the locals called Pallet Beach.

Ash started down the path into town and stopped at the fountain in the middle of the town that served as a guide for tourists visiting.  
The signs indicated various locations including Oak's lab, the beach and the new shopping centre, where his mother worked as the head chef.  
However, none of these were the path Ash wanted to take, so he kept going straight towards his home.

Meanwhile, at the Ketchum home, Delia was inside making some food for Ash so he could eat once he got home.  
Pikachu hopped onto the table and sniffed the sandwiches,  
"Pi ka pikapi?" he looked at Delia curiously.  
"Uh huh, they are, Ash will be very hungry after his journey, and he is very much like his father in that way." Delia smiled.  
Mimey laughed, knowing all too well how right she was.  
Pikachu jumped off the bench and went into the cupboard, bringing out his beloved ketchup bottle and looked at Delia  
"Aw that's so cute! Go ahead" and with that Pikachu covered a slice of bread in ketchup and put another slice on top, satisfied, Pikachu hoped Ash would enjoy that as much as he did.  
As Delia got everything else ready Pikachu's ears suddenly shot up…  
"Pi?" he listened carefully, closing his eyes, "PIKAPI!" suddenly he bolted out the door much to Mimey's surprise.  
Delia just stood there and smiled happily.

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 **AN: Firstly sorry for the lateness of this chapter, i had to take it down and reupload due to issues with the format but hopefully that is fixed.**

 **Thanks for follow and for keeping up with the story, hopefully the delays in my personal life clear up soon.**

 **in the meantime i recommend you read:**

 **the 2nd try by JimmyWolk, just read it myself and really enjoyed it.**

 **thats it from me. thanks for reading, feel free to review**


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